CHAOS, KANGAROO COURTS, AND COMMUNISM AT KOJE-DO: POW Riots in the Korean War

By Arthur Sharp

The U.S. Army made some serious mistakes during the almost forgotten, but historically significant, Korean War. One of them was assigning combat officers untrained for prison administration as commanders of the United Nations prisoner of war camps. The communist POWs took full advantage of that and made life miserable for them, their guards, and fellow prisoners who were not committed to their ideology. Riots in the prison camps became deadly on an almost daily basis and kangaroo courts cost many POWS their lives via brutal murders—at the hands of their supposed comrades. That was fine with the POWs as long as they kept chaos alive. They brought life to the saying the inmates are running the asylum, which they did until the fourteenth U.S. camp commander finally took back control of the camps in May 1952. The two-and-a-half-year standoff between commanders and communists marked a new era in prisoner of war history which set a precedent for future wars involving westerners versus easterners. This book tells that story in an educational, entertaining, and riveting fashion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Feb 6, 2024
• ISBN: 9781977272270

Arthur Sharp

Arthur G. Sharp, a native of Waterbury, CT, is a historian/writer/editor/researcher. He is the author of 19 books and 2,500+ articles on a variety of topics. He earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in history from the University of Hartford (West Hartford, CT) and Trinity College (Hartford, CT) respectively. Sharp served four years in the United States Marine Corps, from which he received an honorable discharge. He taught at the university level for over thirty years, His subjects ranged from Technical & Business Writing to Literature, Management, Business Ethics, and International Management. He edits three military association magazines: The Graybeards (Korean War Veterans Association); The Old Breed News (1st Marine Division Association); and The Chosin Few Digest (Chosin Few Association). He currently lives in Sun City Center, FL. His curiosity and background as an historian led him to do the research for this book, which sheds new light on climate change.

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CHAOS, KANGAROO COURTS, AND COMMUNISM AT KOJE-DO

POW Riots in the Korean War

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2024 Arthur Sharp

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Acknowledgement

This book would not be complete without the research of Icle Davis, who served at Koje. Let him set the stage for what you are about to read:

A Soldier’s Reflection on Koje-do Island

By Icle Davis

My Korean War experience was different from that of most American soldiers. I was sent to Koje-do Island, located about 20 miles south of the city of Pusan or the mainland of Korea. I arrived in mid-November, 1951. It took about four hours by boat.

I was assigned to the 165th Military Police Company, 94th MP Battalion. I served as company clerk for about three weeks. In mid-December I asked for a transfer to the motor pool, which was granted. I drove a truck until late May 1952.

The area housed about 170,000 POWs. The land area was split by a large mountain. The east valley had about 40,000 North Korean POWS and about 50,000 civilian internees, citizens who were forced to join the North Korean Army as it was driving south. Our company was located in the central valley, which housed about 70,000 North Korean POWS and 20,000 Chinese POWs.

There was a total of 30 compounds. Each compound held about 6,000 POWs. It took about 150 soldiers to operate each compound. The duties ranged from serving in guard towers, walking the fences, escorting POWs on work details, and distributing items that the POWs needed. We worked seven days a week, with time off to attend church.

The POWs had the opportunity to leave the compound on work details, and they were provided with recreational activities. Church services were allowed in the compounds as well. A well-equipped hospital was located to serve their medical needs on the island. Serious medical problems were treated near Pusan.

The peace talks started in July, 1951. In mid-summer that year, several POWs expressed an interest in not returning to their homeland. Riots began to occur in several compounds in July. The North Korean and Chinese delegates at the Peace Table demanded that all POWs be returned at war’s end. President Truman instructed the United Nations Command (UNC) delegate that all POWs held by our command would have the opportunity to choose whether he or she (there were about 800 female POWs) wanted to return home or be assigned to another country.

The island commander asked for additional troops. In early December, a battalion of the U.S. 23rd Infantry Regiment arrived. Also, the ROK Army sent additional soldiers.

In late December the 3rd Battalion of the 27th Regiment, 25th Division arrived.

The screening continued in non-communist compounds throughout the month of April. Several thousand POWs were moved to other islands through Operation Scatter. (The remaining POWs were loyal to their country.) We truckers were kept busy hauling POWs to the holding compounds and later to the landing crafts to haul them to their new home.

On April 20th the 38th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Division arrived. What a welcome sight it was. Most of them were stationed in the central valley, where the majority of the North Koreans were housed, in compounds # 76, 77, 78, 85, 92 and 95. We truckers and other guards were ordered to stay out of compounds #76, 77 and 78 until further notice.

On April 28th the peace talks were called off until further notice. Our command was hoping the hostile atmosphere on the island would settle down. Unfortunately, that did not happen.

Between May 7th and June 10, 1952 several changes and events took place. On May 8th, Brigadier General Charles Colson replaced General Dodd. On May 10th, General Dodd was released from Compound 76. On May 12th, General Mark Clark replaced General Matthew Ridgway as supreme commander of the Far East. Brigadier General Haydon Boatner replaced General Colson as island commander on May 17th, and the UNC placed all troops on the island on high alert.

ROK Navy gun boats patrolled the shores. Additional Army troops were sent to help secure the island. They included the 3rd Battalion of the 9th Infantry, 2nd Division; 81st Battalion of the 15th Infantry; a battalion from the Netherlands, a British Rifle Co., a Canadian Rifle Co., and a Greek Company.

The 430 Engineer Construction Battalion was sent to help construct the smaller compounds ordered by General Boatner. During this period, empty compounds were tom down and replaced by smaller ones that would hold 500 POWs. The villages were torn down and the refugees were relocated farther from the compounds. We guards helped with clean up.

Since we were not allowed in the compounds to remove wastes, our routine changed. For example, we had to haul the human waste by truck. We truckers shared the duty.

Day by day, the POWs in the compounds 76, 77, 78, 8S, 92, and 95 ran through their drills, sparring with swords and spears in an effort to show our command they were going to resist being screened and relocated. On June 7, General Boatner asked his Staff Officers, Are you ready?

They said, Yes.

General Boatner ordered the troops on June 7th to practice mob control formations outside Compound # 76, which held the toughest group of prisoners. He wanted the arrogant North Korean officers to see what was in store.

The General positioned the 187th Regimental Combat Team on the left side of the front entrance. Flame throwers would back up tanks. Tear gas and concussion grenades would be used by the paratroopers, who were ordered not to fire a shot. They were to rely on the bayonets and their rifle butts.

On the opposite side of the one selected for entrance, he posted troops from the 38th and 9th Infantry Regiments and other units with mortars and machine guns. On June 10th, he sent word to Colonel Lee Hak Koo and told him to assemble the POWs in groups of 100. They were going to be moved to the new, smaller compounds in 30 minutes.

There was no word from North Korean Commander Colonel Lee. Boatner waited another 15 minutes. Still there was no word from Colonel Lee. The general phoned Brigadier Thomas Trapnell, the Commander of the 187th, and said, Carry out the plan.

The tanks moved forward. Troops threw tear gas bombs and concussion grenades. The flame throwers set fire to a few buildings. The POWs came at the troops with spears and began throwing rocks. The battle lasted for about 2-1/2 hours. Finally, the POWs had enough. Colonel Lee was found in a ditch, and they escorted him by his hair to the front gate.

When the smoke and tear gas lifted from the smoking ruins of Compound #76, the bodies of 41 POWs lay sprawled in the trenches and in the dust. A hundred or more POWS were wounded.

One U.S. paratrooper died of wounds and 13 others were wounded. I injured my back while unloading 100-pound rice bags and was sent to a Pusan hospital. Consequently, I missed the breakup on June 10th. The other POWs went peacefully to the new compounds.

On behalf of the military personnel who served on Koje, we extend our thanks to all members of the units who came to our aid and defense.

Icle’s dream later in life was to publish a book about the history of the camp. He did copious amounts of research but never reached his goal. His family graciously turned all his files over to me in the hope that I would continue the project. This book is the result.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the U.N. soldiers who served as prison guards at Koje-do Island and other prisoner of war camps during the Korean War. Most of them were trained for combat, but not for prison work. Yet, through no fault of their own they were assigned to prison guard duty instead of combat for a short while.

For many of them it was as dangerous as serving on the front line. But, they did their jobs professionally, as was expected. That was the hallmark of a true soldier, as it always has been and always will be for well-trained, adaptable warfighters.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgement

Foreword

Introduction

1. The Grand Opening

2. Everything at Koje was not peaches and cream

3. It’s like caging starving wolves and three-legged fawns together

4. A soldier’s life at Koje

5. A prisoner’s paradise? Not Koje

6. The Peace Pipe is a Myth

7. Our prisoners love Communism

8. The Communist propaganda machine

9. What a way to Celebrate George Washington’s Birthday

10. A secret uprising

11. Here they come

12. An unheard of kidnapping

13. Dodd dodders out, tanks move in

14. Boatner Rights the Ship

15. Changes in the wind

16. The 38th and 187th Regiments Arrive

17. Tales of the Pendleton Woods

18. A mini-political war between Great Britain and the U.S.

19. War on the Canadian front

20. Investigations

21. Propaganda and the POWs

22. Lessons learned

23. Blame it on the IRC

24. Why?

25. Aftershocks

Epilog

Appendix A

Appendix B

Chronology: 1951-52

Bibliography

Foreword

Koje was less than cozy

BY TOM MOORE

The key issue blocking a truce is the U.N. stand that no prisoner be forcibly repatriated. Only 70,000 of 169,000 captured Reds have expressed willingness to return to Red rule.¹

It seems that few if anyone in the United Nations Command (UNC) had a program for enemy prisoners during the Korean War. The number rose from under a thousand in August 1950 to over 130,000 in November 1950. Facilities to confine, clothe, and feed them were not available. There were not enough U.N. troops in Korea to guard the enemy prisoners, nor were the guards assigned adequately trained for this mission. The guards at Koje were primarily American soldiers, often reinforced by South Korean troops, who were often unarmed.

The enemy prisoners of war (POW) at that time were housed near Pusan. Ex-Republic of Korea (ROK) soldiers who had been impressed into the North Korean Army and later recaptured or surrendered to U.N. forces were assigned to take over the leadership in the POW Compounds.

The Communists POW total reached 137,000 in January 1951. Then, the UNC decided to isolate the enemy prisoners of war on Koje-do, a 155 square-mile island off the southern coast of Korea, today named Geoje-do. (Do means island in Korean.)

When the armistice negotiations at Kaesong got underway in July 1951, the enemy prisoners realized that their future was at stake. Many had professed strong anti-communist sentiments and were afraid to return home. Others, anticipating repatriation, swung clearly to the side of Communist groups in the compounds.

From North Korea, agents were sent to the front lines to be captured deliberately so they could infiltrate the U.N. POW camps to manage the non-Communist prisoners and persuade them via political indoctrination to return to their homelands. The agents organized cells of resistance in the compounds and encouraged violence of all types against their fellow prisoners and their guards.

Working through refugees (one-fourth of the refugees were Communist troops or agents), civilians, and local agents on Koje, the agent prisoners were able to keep in touch with their headquarters and to plan, organize, and stage incidents at will. Inside the camps, messages were passed visually by signals, hurled by rocks from compound to compound, or transferred by word of mouth. The hospital compound served as a clearinghouse for information, and was one of the centers of Communist resistance.

Although the enemy agents wielded the actual power in the compounds, they concealed themselves behind the nominal commanders and operated carefully to cloak their identities. Behind the agents stood their chiefs, Lt. General Nam Il and Maj. General Lee Sang Cho, the principal Communist delegates to the Armistice Conference. The connection between the armistice negotiations and the POW camps showed the Communists’ efforts to use every possible measure to exert pressure upon the course of the armistice talks.

The United States had not ratified the Geneva Convention of 1949 on prisoners of war, but had volunteered to observe its provisions. The Geneva Convention, however, was designed primarily to protect the rights of POWs by defining the basic rights of wartime prisoners, civilians and military personnel, establishing protections for the wounded and sick, and providing protections for the civilians in and around a war-zone. It completely failed to foresee the development of organized prisoner groups such as those that grew up on Koje in 1951-52, or to provide protection for the captor nations in dealing with stubborn prisoner resistance.

Every effort at violence by the prisoners that was countered by force reflected badly upon the UNC, regardless of the provocations given by the prisoners. The enemy negotiators portrayed the UNC in the press as an armed bully abusing the captive, defenseless Communists, and they capitalized on the situation. Prisoners conducted bloody clashes among themselves, beatings, murders, and Kangaroo courts.

The U.N. camp commander was not in a position to prosecute. He was not permitted by his superiors in the Pentagon to institute judicial procedures against the culprits, because doing so might upset the ongoing armistice procedures in Panmunjom. Deprived of this weapon of disciplinary control, the prison commander was forced to operate under a distinct disadvantage.

From January to mid-September 1951, when Colonel Maurice J. Fitzgerald assumed command, there had been eight different commanders—about one a month. Koje was a graveyard of commanders.

In September 1951, fifteen prisoners were murdered by a self-appointed Communist people’s court. In October General James Van Fleet, commander of the U.S. 8th Army, ordered the activation of the 137th Military Police Group, and an additional four escort guard companies were assigned to the group. In November, the U.S. 23rd Infantry Regiment was made available.

On October 20, U.S. Army military police discovered a nearly completed escape tunnel in the prisoner compound housing 2,600 North Korean officers. It was part of a well-organized plot for a mass escape of Communist prisoners from the prison. The POWs had to dig only another thirty feet to complete the tunnel.² There was no limit to their creativity, industriousness—and treachery.

By December, over 9,000 U.S. and ROK troops were stationed on Koje-do, 6,000 fewer than was requested. A screening process of all POWs was conducted to see who wanted to return to Communism and who didn’t.³ Then some genius in the Pentagon set up a Metalworking Vocational Educational Program for the prisoners. The Communists, of course, were delighted with the program. They quickly produced weapons of all varieties, instead of utensils, stoves, and tools, and used these arms to gain interior control in the compounds whenever they could.

Remember, there were over 137,000 enemy prisoners on Koje. There were no natural water resources on the island. Colonel Hartley F. Dame, the first POW camp commander, had to build dams and store rainwater to service the 118,000 locals, 100,000 refugees, and at times up to 170,000 enemy prisoners, along with 6,000+ U.N. forces. By the end of January 1951 the first enclosure, POW-Number 1, was finished. Then, in the rock-strewn valleys on the north coast, four enclosures, each sub-divided into eight compounds, were built.

Intended to hold 700-1,200 men apiece, they soon held five times their capacity. Land was at a premium. Space between the compounds was used to confine prisoners also. Only barbed wire separated the compounds. It didn’t take long before trouble erupted.

Fifteen prisoners were murdered by a self-appointed people’s court. Two days later three more prisoners were killed when rioting broke out in Compound 78. Control over the growing number of prisoners was difficult, and later became impossible.

By 1952, there were over 170,000 enemy prisoners on the island. About 85 percent were North Korean; the rest were from China. The U.N. still had insufficient manpower to control the enemy prisoners, and all parties knew it. The U.N. guards discovered just how well armed the enemy prisoners were in their barracks. The prisoners possessed pick handles, knives, axes, flails, tent poles used as spears, and rocks. That almost guaranteed a battle at some point between them and the guards.

The first encounter was on 18 February 1952, when 6,500 inmates of compound 62 refused to permit the U.N. teams to enter to screen them. They said they wished to return to North Korea and no screening was necessary. The 3rd Battalion of the 27th Infantry Regiment moved in. About 1,500 internees pressed the attack, and the 27th used concussion grenades. When that didn’t stop the assault, the U.N. troops opened fire.

Fifty-five enemy prisoners were killed immediately. Twenty-two more died at the hospital, and 140 were wounded. One U.S. soldier was killed and 38 were wounded. The outcome was a success for the Communists, for the infantry withdrew and the compound was not screened.

On February 20, Van Fleet appointed Brigadier General T. Francis Dodd as Camp Commander to tighten up discipline. On May 7, 1952, Dodd drove up to compound 76 around 2 p.m. Dodd allowed prisoners to approach him, and they dragged him into the compound. The U.S. sent Colonel William H. Craig by air to assume command.

Craig called for machine gun crews, grenades, and gas masks. The 3rd Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment boarded an LST at Pusan. ROK Navy picket boats ringed the island in case of a major escape attempt. U.S. Navy and Marine aircraft were put on alert. Van Fleet dispatched Brigadier General Charles F. Colson, Chief of Staff, from the U.S. I Corps, to take charge and rescue Dodd by force.

Colson had no knowledge of conditions on Koje. General Mark Clark, commander of the UNC, forbade press or photo coverage. The enemy prisoners put Dodd on trial, charged with 19 counts. On 10 May 1952, Dodd and Colson agreed to the enemy’s demands, admitting that U.N. forces were responsible for bloodshed in the prison camps and ceasing interrogations of the prisoners for screening purposes. At 9:30 p.m. that night Dodd walked safely out of Compound 76.

Van Fleet recommended administrative action against Dodd. Clark wanted more severe action against both generals. The Department of the Army approved Clark’s request. The result was a reduction in grade to Colonel for both Dodd and Colson. Later, Dodd, a four-year varsity letterman in football and track at West Point, a halfback on the undefeated Army team, football captain his senior year, and the man who caught the winning touchdown pass against Navy in the 1922 game, was forced to retire. He had been U.S. Eighth Army Deputy Chief of Staff under Van Fleet. It was a devastating punishment for both former generals.

The new Koje camp commander was Lt. Colonel John Bostic. He had to take control of Compounds 1, 2, and 3 from the enemy prisoners. On May 17, 1952, the prisoners of Compound 1 moved to their new home, Compound 79. On May 19, Van Fleet approved the use of force to clear the other compounds of enemy prisoners. The next day, troops took charge of Compound 3 through the use of tear gas and concussion grenades. On May 21 the prisoners in Compound 2 gave up with no resistance.

Many of the prisoners at Koje were to be dispersed within Korea. Koje was to be reinforced with the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team, aka The Angels from Hell, and tanks from the Eighth Army. The enemy prisoners would go to Jeju Island (705 sq. miles), south of Korea, and other locations on the mainland. Brigadier General Haydon L. Boatner, Assistant Division Commander of the 2nd Infantry Division, would be the new Koje commander.

When the old compounds were closed by newer ones, a 2.5 hour battle ensued and 31 enemy prisoners were killed. U.N. troops found a host of weapons, including 3,000 spears, 4,500 knives, 1,000 gasoline grenades, and huge numbers of clubs, hatchets, hammers, and barbed wire flails. The Koje camp was closed following the signing of the Armistice Agreement. A Memorial Park was established on part of the old camp in 1997.

The graveyard of unfortunate commanders was no more.

_______________

1 "U.N. taxes Korea Reds with responsibility for ‘profitless war,’ Washington D.C. Evening Star, June 16, 1952, p. 6

2 Red prisoners’ escape foiled, Watertown, NY, Daily Times, Nov. 6, 1951, p. 2

3 One of the most daunting tasks at Koje-do had to be the process of fingerprinting and interviewing prisoners. There were over 100,000 of them at the camps as of April 29, 1952. Officials put the number at 132,244, plus 37,717 civilian internees. Of the military prisoners, 111,496 were North Koreans and 20,728 were Chinese Communists. That required a lot of fingerprinting, photographing,